Ki­ran To­ta-Ma­haraj

The peren­ni­al strug­gle for a con­sis­tent wa­ter sup­ply in Trinidad and To­ba­go has be­come a tire­some re­frain in the na­tion’s po­lit­i­cal dis­course. Each dry sea­son brings with it the fa­mil­iar cy­cle of blame, promis­es, and ul­ti­mate­ly, con­tin­ued hard­ship for cit­i­zens.

How­ev­er, the so­lu­tions to this en­dur­ing cri­sis are not locked away in some dis­tant, un­at­tain­able fu­ture. For far too long, the wa­ter sec­tor in the Caribbean has been over­ly politi­cised, with rib­bon-cut­ting cer­e­monies and blue-and-white bal­loons of­ten mask­ing the stark re­al­i­ty ex­pe­ri­enced dai­ly by thou­sands of cit­i­zens.

Be­yond the po­lit­i­cal point-scor­ing of the past decade, there is an ur­gent need to call for na­tion­al uni­ty on the is­sue of wa­ter. Ac­cess to clean and re­li­able wa­ter tran­scends po­lit­i­cal di­vides; it is a fun­da­men­tal hu­man right and a cor­ner­stone of eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment.

The next Gov­ern­ment of T&T must move be­yond the five-year cy­cle of blame games and em­brace a col­lab­o­ra­tive, so­lu­tion-ori­ent­ed ap­proach. By learn­ing from the suc­cess­es of na­tions that have over­come sim­i­lar chal­lenges, and by strate­gi­cal­ly lever­ag­ing its ex­ist­ing strengths, T&T can fi­nal­ly move from po­lit­i­cal pipe dreams to prac­ti­cal progress in its wa­ter sec­tor. The time for de­ci­sive ac­tion is now; the well-be­ing of the na­tion de­pends on it.

A prag­mat­ic look east­ward, to­wards the re­mark­able ad­vance­ments in wa­ter man­age­ment achieved by na­tions such as the UAE (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Shar­jah), Bahrain, and Oman, re­veals a clear path­way for­ward. The next Gov­ern­ment of T&T has a cru­cial man­date: to de­politi­cise this es­sen­tial sec­tor and de­ci­sive­ly pri­ori­tise wa­ter se­cu­ri­ty by mod­ernising both wa­ter and waste­water in­fra­struc­ture across the twin-is­land re­pub­lic.

A Gulf State Blue­print for Caribbean Re­silience

The arid land­scapes of the Mid­dle East, fac­ing far greater nat­ur­al wa­ter scarci­ty than T&T, have trans­formed their wa­ter sec­tors through strate­gic in­vest­ment and tech­no­log­i­cal in­no­va­tion. Their suc­cess sto­ries, of­ten un­der­pinned by ro­bust en­er­gy in­dus­tries, of­fer com­pelling lessons:

* De­sali­na­tion: Na­tions like the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (UAE) have made sig­nif­i­cant in­vest­ments in ad­vanced de­sali­na­tion tech­nolo­gies, ef­fi­cient­ly con­vert­ing sea­wa­ter in­to potable wa­ter. This pro­vides a con­tin­u­ous, re­li­able, and cli­mate-re­silient wa­ter source—a cru­cial con­sid­er­a­tion for T&T’s DE­SAL­COTT (De­sali­na­tion Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go), ranked as the 9th best de­sali­na­tion fa­cil­i­ty glob­al­ly in a re­cent re­port—to ex­pand op­er­a­tions in coastal re­gions.

* Waste­water as a Re­source: In­stead of view­ing waste­water as a prob­lem, T&T must em­brace its po­ten­tial. So­phis­ti­cat­ed treat­ment and reuse sys­tems are em­ployed for ir­ri­ga­tion, in­dus­tri­al pur­pos­es, and even re­plen­ish­ing ground­wa­ter sup­plies, cre­at­ing a sus­tain­able wa­ter cy­cle.

* Strate­gic In­fra­struc­ture In­vest­ment: Mod­ern, leak-proof pipeline net­works and state-of-the-art treat­ment plants are the cor­ner­stones of ef­fi­cient wa­ter man­age­ment sys­tems, dras­ti­cal­ly re­duc­ing wa­ter loss and en­sur­ing high-qual­i­ty wa­ter de­liv­ery.

* Tech­no­log­i­cal In­te­gra­tion: Smart wa­ter man­age­ment sys­tems, util­is­ing dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies for mon­i­tor­ing, leak de­tec­tion, and op­ti­mised dis­tri­b­u­tion, are in­te­gral to any ef­fi­cient util­i­ty op­er­a­tion.

* T&T’s Un­tapped En­er­gy Po­ten­tial: Lever­ag­ing Ex­ist­ing Strengths

Trinidad and To­ba­go is not start­ing from scratch. Its well-es­tab­lished oil and gas sec­tor presents a unique ad­van­tage. This ex­per­tise and po­ten­tial rev­enue stream can be strate­gi­cal­ly di­rect­ed to­wards:

* Fund­ing Mod­ern In­fra­struc­ture: In­vest­ing in de­sali­na­tion plants, up­grad­ing ex­ist­ing wa­ter treat­ment fa­cil­i­ties, and re­plac­ing di­lap­i­dat­ed pipelines are cru­cial ini­tial steps.

* Pow­er­ing Sus­tain­able So­lu­tions: The en­er­gy sec­tor can pro­vide ef­fi­cient and po­ten­tial­ly re­new­able en­er­gy sources to pow­er wa­ter treat­ment and de­sali­na­tion process­es.

* De­vel­op­ing Lo­cal Ex­per­tise: Col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Caribbean Wa­ter and Waste­water As­so­ci­a­tion (CWWA), re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al ex­perts, cou­pled with train­ing and de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives, can build lo­cal ca­pac­i­ty in ad­vanced wa­ter man­age­ment tech­nolo­gies.

Two-Year Win­dow for Wa­ter Trans­for­ma­tion (2025–2027) and the Ur­gency of Ac­tion Need­ed

While long-term plan­ning is es­sen­tial, tan­gi­ble im­prove­ments can be achieved with­in a two-year time­frame with fo­cused lead­er­ship and a clear strat­e­gy. This re­quires:

* Em­pow­er­ing a Re­struc­tured WASA with Au­ton­o­my and Re­sources: The Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) needs to be led by com­pe­tent and qual­i­fied en­gi­neer­ing pro­fes­sion­als—those who un­der­stand en­gi­neer­ing as­sets—free from po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence, and equipped with the nec­es­sary fi­nan­cial and tech­ni­cal re­sources to im­ple­ment mod­erni­sa­tion plans.

* A For­ward-Think­ing Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Led by Qual­i­fied En­gi­neer­ing Pro­fes­sion­als: The Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties must cham­pi­on a long-term vi­sion for wa­ter se­cu­ri­ty, fos­ter­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion and dri­ving pol­i­cy changes nec­es­sary for trans­for­ma­tion. Ide­al­ly, this Min­istry would be led by a Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties who is a reg­is­tered pro­fes­sion­al en­gi­neer (REng) with the Board of En­gi­neer­ing of Trinidad and To­ba­go (BOETT), with a strong un­der­stand­ing of day-to-day op­er­a­tions. Pri­or­i­ty must be giv­en to iden­ti­fy­ing and rec­ti­fy­ing ma­jor leaks, up­grad­ing crit­i­cal treat­ment fa­cil­i­ties, and ex­plor­ing pi­lot de­sali­na­tion projects.

* De­vel­op­ing a Na­tion­al Wa­ter, Stormwa­ter and Waste­water Man­age­ment Strat­e­gy: A com­pre­hen­sive plan for up­grad­ing wa­ter, stormwa­ter (drainage), and waste­water in­fra­struc­ture, and ex­plor­ing wa­ter reuse op­por­tu­ni­ties, is es­sen­tial for en­vi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion and re­source op­ti­mi­sa­tion. It is time for con­sol­i­da­tion un­der a uni­fied Min­istry en­com­pass­ing Works, Drainage, and Pub­lic Util­i­ties.

Prof Ki­ran To­ta-Ma­haraj is a Pro­fes­sor of Wa­ter Re­sources Man­age­ment & In­fra­struc­ture at the Roy­al Agri­cul­tur­al Uni­ver­si­ty, Eng­land, UK, and Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor – Wa­ter, Waste­water & En­vi­ron­men­tal En­gi­neer­ing at the Wa­ter Re­search Cen­tre (WRc), Eng­land, UK.